WASHINGTON — Seventeen-year-olds will soon be able to buy the “morning after” emergency contraceptive without a doctor’s prescription, because the Food and Drug Administration bowed to a judge’s order yesterday.

Reversing a contentious policy of the Bush administration, the FDA said in a brief statement it will not appeal a judge’s order that overturns restrictions limiting over-the-counter sales of so-called Plan B to women 18 and older.

Conservatives called the decision a blow to parental supervision of teens. But women’s groups said the FDA’s action was long overdue, since the agency’s own medical reviewers had initially recommended that the contraceptive be made available without any age restrictions.

Federal Judge Edward Korman ruled last month in a lawsuit filed in New York that Bush administration appointees let politics, not science, drive their decision to restrict over-the-counter access.